GRAND HAVEN, MI – The Michigan Court of Appeals has reinstated a lawsuit by the family of Chance Nash, an 11-year-old Nunica boy killed in a 2009 sledding accident at Duncan Memorial Park, against the park’s commission and trustees.

In a published decision released Friday, March 21, a three-judge appeals panel reversed a 2012 decision by Ottawa County 27th Circuit Judge Jon Hulsing that dismissed the lawsuit.

The appeals court, unlike Hulsing, concluded that the Duncan Park Commission is a private organization, not a “political subdivision” of the city of Grand Haven.

Therefore, the appeals court ruled, the park commission and its trustees do not have governmental immunity, and the Nash family can sue them.

The appeals court remanded the case back to Ottawa County Circuit Court for further proceedings.

The family’s lawsuit, filed in January 2011, contended that the park was required to remove the log the boy collided with. Failure to do so was negligence, their attorney argued.

The park commission’s trustees, in interviews shortly after the accident, said dead trees and logs aren’t supposed to be removed unless they block the road leading to the park or the parking lot. They said that policy was because Martha Duncan, who donated the property to the people of Grand Haven in 1913, wanted the land to remain in its natural state.

Chance Nash died Dec. 31, 2009, of blunt injuries to the abdomen, which caused massive internal bleeding. He was a fifth-grader at Spring Lake Intermediate School.

John
S. Hausman covers courts, prisons, the environment and local government for
MLive Muskegon Chronicle. Email him at jhausman@mlive.com and follow
him on Twitter.